Things Change
by Atlantis Blakes
Summary: Summary: While reading To Kill a Mockingbird I found myself wishing Atticus, Scout, Dill, and Jem could see how things are today... how much we've grown... or not...
1. The New Maycomb

**Things Change**

Summary: While reading To Kill a Mockingbird I found myself wishing Atticus, Scout, Dill, and Jem could see how things are today... how much we've grown... or not...

_The New Maycomb_

"There's no newspaper this morning," Atticus said disappointedly. "I'll have to ask for one when I go to the office."

"Can Dill, Scout, 'n' me go with you?" asked Jem. He said we were planning to go to town anyway.

"I certainly wouldn't mind a bit of company."

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, one I planned on spending the entire day outside on. The summer had just begun for 1936 and Dill had arrived yesterday, as always, with a story about his new father (who carved wood into very detailed shapes of animals). For once, most of his extravagant tale was, in the least, believable. He had given us each a carved creature; mine was a lion and Jem's was an eagle. This made up for the small fantasy on one carved monkey coming to life and trashing his father's home.

That morning we piled into the Chevrolet adn Atticus drove to The Maycomb Tribune Office. We followed him inside for no particular reason. Atticus asked Mr. Underwood for a newspaper and when Mr. Underwood apologized and kindly supplied our father with one, the transaction was over.

Jem, who was ahead of us, was gazing in awe at the world before him when we caught up with him. All the ladies were wearing pants. Some people were wearing hooded sweatshirts and there were various throngs of people who huddled so closely it seemed they were trying to hide something. There were cars everywhere and the red, dirt roads were now covered in black. The Jitney Jungle a few doors down had been replaced by a store called the Electro Depot.

"What's going on, Atticus?" I asked nervously.

"I'm not sure, exactly," came his response.

When the traffic subsided, Jem ran across the street to the courthouse. Dill and I followed him, forcing Atticus to consent. "Atticus, who's James Sturdivant?" Mr. Sturdivant's name had replaced Atticus's on his office door.

Atticus peered at the door for a moment and came to his final conclusion: "Something's not right." I couldn't have agreed more.

"Where do you think we are?" asked Dill.

"Maycomb, where else?" I responded sarcastically.

"I don't recognize anyone..." Jem was looking into the distance but his eyes seemed vacated; he was thinking. He looked up at our father curiously. "What date is on your paper?"

Atticus surveyed it. "June 2... 2005... We're eighty years in the future?"

A/N: Kind of a prologue really, but I was trying to get the characters down... NEXT: THE ELECTRO DEPOT... Please review!


	2. The Electro Depot

**Things Change**

Summary: While reading To Kill a Mockingbird I found myself wishing Atticus, Scout, Dill, and Jem could see how things are today... how much we've grown... or not...

_The Electro Depot_

"Not even Dill has that big of an imagination," I replied. "How can we be in the future?"

"I don't know, but that must be it. You kids stay close. I don't want you to get lost, not here." Atticus rarely gave us orders, but when he did we usually tried to obey them. These orders, however, were not necessary. I would have clung to him anyway.

This was a strange world to me, though it was my own hometown. I couldn't understand it; women and men, black and white, were working side by side as though it had always been done. Although most of the buildings had the same front as before, they all appeared to be completely transformed, giving the town a new and distinguishably different look.

Atticus, having decided that until we found a way home he really couldn't go to work, answered our pleads to look around first. We entered the Electro Depot and, to our amazement, found a large section of boxes with images of walking, talking news reporters on them.

"Why would anyone want to watch some old guy talkin' about news?" asked Jem.

Dill pushed a button at the base of the box and the screen changed to a gray cat chasing a brown mouse with a series of painful obstacles standing between them (to the mouse's advantage). He laughed when the cat stepped on the end of a rake. "You c'n have the picture show in your house!"

A section of similar boxes with modern-looking typewriters attached to them attracted Jem. "Hey, Atticus? May I take a look?" he asked, nodding toward them.

Atticus said he could, but warned him not to wander away. Jem satisfied himself and out of the corner of my eyes I noticed him push a few buttons. When something appeared on the screen he was mildly intimidated. He persevered, though and continued contentedly with not a clue in the world on what he was doing.

Atticus kept a weary eye on us all and after a few moments he was pulled into conversation by a nearby Negro sales clerk. When the clerk asked if he could help him, Atticus replied that he had no idea what any of the items around him were.

"Well, sir, this here is a flat screen," the clerk said while pointing at a thinner box.

Atticus shook his head politely and answered, "Really we're just looking around... getting out of the daily rut..." The subtlety of his response made me laugh.

"Oh, I understand, sir." The clerk left to assist other customers.

"Atticus!" I cried. "Atticus, this little camera can take color pictures!" And my father was torn away from the boxes (which he had changed back to the news reporters, determined to be educated on the subject of current worldly affairs I supposed).

Dill, Atticus, and I were astounded by the machines we found. There was one in demonstration that the same clerk put two slices of bread into. To our astonishment, toast was made, then buttered, broken, and handed out. Another machine blew cool air at the turn of a knob. I didn't want to leave it but we realized we had lost Jem.

He wasn't at the boxes labeled Dell anymore. He wasn't anywhere in the store, but the clerk said he didn't see him leave. He said he would go get his assistant to help us (who we were surprised to find out was angloid). The assistant told us he had seen Jem leave with another boy around his age and that they were headed somewhere to the left of the store. We rushed out of the store with the assistant at our heels in case we needed further aid.

"Give me the rest of your money! Now! You got to have more than a dime somewhere!" One of the people I had seen huddled together before had my brother pinned to a brick wall. I felt heated but I knew Atticus would chastise me if I fought this boy. I stood still, but I could hardly bear it.

"You got a problem, old man?"

"That's my son you're robbing," Atticus replied curtly. "I'd appreciate it if you would let him go."

"I don't wanta stick anyone, old man, you all seem real nice, but if I don't get what I want I might hafta." The boy pulled a knife from his pocket and put its shiny edge to the back of Jem's neck. The assistant slid off to the side and made a call from a tiny portable phone.

"I'm not looking for trouble, sir," Atticus said with a voice only comparable to gently stroking a kitten to rest. "Please, let him go."

The boy refused and I lost my self-restraint. "Let Jem alone before I." The knife was pointing at me and fearful tears filled my eyes.

"Before you what?" demanded the boy.

"Stay out of it, Scout," Jem muttered in attempted bravery.

Dill pulled me back. "We don't want you in a fix too." He hugged me, even in the view of others.

An older boy, almost a man, ran past us yelling, "Dude, I got the money. Now we can buy another fix!" Within seconds they were gone.

Jem crumbled to the ground at his release. He rubbed his arm in discomfort and I noticed a small tremor in his movements. We wasted no time getting to him. "He said he wanted drugs," Jem explained quietly. "Heroine, I think..."

"Why did you leave with him, son?" inquired Atticus.

"I didn't go willingly..." Atticus nodded understandingly. "I gave him my last dime," Jem added as I hugged him.

I was horrified. I had just begun to think the future was a brighter place than our own present, the better of two worlds, but now those dreams had been shattered. For once in its entire existence, the United States had come close to acheiving absolute equality; only now it didn't matter.


End file.
